Old Dog, New Tricks - Third SIV, May 2012

For my third SIV, I did two days of stalls on my Ozone Mantra R10.2 and one day of wing-overs on my Avax XC2.

The video footage is here.

The first few stalls were really messy - especially the first and fifth ones, which will make you cringe.   After this  I started to understand the glider a bit more and improved my harness position; more symmetric hands, more compact body with elbows tucked in.     This makes a difference to the stability in tailslide and allows you to find a nicer exit.     This was stuff I knew beforehand but it seems theory needs practice sometimes.   Later, I really enjoyed linking some stall sequences and my first dynamic stalls.

From the on-board footage, I can see loads of things I was doing wrong, especially asymmetric hand movements in back-fly, missing some good exit windows and some weird paddling of the brakes on stall exit.     I also seem to have the habit of releasing the brakes too fast on stall exit for this glider.  A  smoother and slower release from a slighly higher back-fly hand position would create fewer cravates but it was useful to have some cravate release practice which is always a possibility in real flying.

Overall, the R10 behaves very conventionally in stall: it fully deserves its reputation as one of the really well-sorted 2-liners.     Any of the wobbles here are down to the pilot, not the glider.    For some smoother R10 stalls have a look at French duo Nicolas Treins and Nico Di Bernardo.     Here are the Swiss League pilots on their EnZos.    For a true master of these wings, you must see Charles Cazaux, again on an EnZo.

By day three I was ready for some chill-out time.   Having last done (smallish) wingovers on my first SIV in 2009 I was keen to try some proper ones.    My homework was entertaining;  Cade Palmer's Tandemonium and Tandemonium 2.    By the end of the day I was starting to enjoy the rhythm.  Great fun!